Earlier this month, the United States Coast Guard upheld its self-declared status as a ‘special’ branch of the military with the ability to prosecute civilians in military tribunals. This startling declaration, unreported in the media, came in a Decision on Appeal related to the case of Lieutenant Eric Shine, a commissioned Naval officer in the Merchant Marines and a graduate of Kings Point Military Service Academy, and was penned by the Vice Commandant of the Coast Guard.

Executive Order 13544, Establishing the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council is a short document outlining the goals and scope of the order. The title gives the appearance that it only creates a Council, but buried within are detailed plans to carry out the “goals” of the Executive Order. Let’s take a closer look at the order.

The US Department of Homeland Security has been spying on people who don’t like gas drilling and handing on the data to the oil companies.

The air marshals, whose identities are being concealed, told 7NEWS that they’re required to submit at least one report a month. If they don’t, there’s no raise, no bonus, no awards and no special assignments.

Is someone out behind your house digging through your trash? Don’t worry, it is probably just the government. When Audi ran their now famous “Green Police” commercial during the Super Bowl last year, most Americans laughed it off and thought that nothing like that could ever happen in America…In 2009, the city of Cleveland has issued 2,900 tickets for trash violations, which was almost five times more tickets than in 2008. In 2010, the city of Cleveland is on track to issue over 4,000 tickets for trash violations.

It has also ruled that innocent civilians tortured and detained, even after release, have no rights for recourse against the CIA or corporations involved because litigation would jeopardize state secrets and top secret classified information critical to National Security.

President Obama’s new Executive Order on “Controlled Unclassified Information” {four page pdf} issued today builds on recommendations from open government groups and the findings of the National Security Archive’s 2006 audit of “Pseudo-Secrets” that uncovered 28 different and uncoordinated policies on marking and restricting official unclassified information.

Suddenly BP’s oil disaster is getting an unusually high amount of positive publicity. Media reports are concluding that most of the oil has disappeared. The static kill has been successful at holding back the oil pressure, and the U.S. government issued a scientific report suggesting that 75 percent of the 4.9 million barrels of oil that gushed into the Gulf as been burned, dispersed or evaporated. But even if you assume that all of the dispersed oil has been degraded, there are still an estimated 1.3 million barrels out in the environment — five times the amount of oil released during the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. People observing beaches in southern coastal states of Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Florida say they are still covered with oil and Corexit 9500, the chemical dispersant BP sprayed to break up the oil and remove it from view. Vast areas of ocean that used to be abundant with sea life show little signs of life anywhere. Plastic bags full of dead sea birds and oil are filling landfills in the south. If millions of gallons of oil have evaporated, what are the consequences for the air quality in the Gulf? Residents have reported that in areas normally besieged by mosquitos, there is now little need for repellant. Despite the rosy reports suddenly filling the airways, damage still appears to be ongoing. There is still plenty of oil in the Gulf that cannot, and will not, be cleaned up, and that will continue to wreak damage on the environment and the economies of Gulf states.

Hiring prison labor is more than a way for BP to save money while cleaning up the biggest oil spill in history. By tapping into the inmate workforce, the company and its subcontractors get workers who are not only cheap but easily silenced—and they get lucrative tax write-offs in the process.

From environmentalists and wildlife specialists to fisherman and businessmen along the Gulf Coast the message is the same: BP is not only strangling the news of what is actually occurring in the Gulf of Mexico with the oil disaster but has co-opted key federal regulatory and oversight agencies to advance its agenda and that of its oil partners, including Halliburton, Anadarko, and Transocean…The EPA is also remaining mute on air quality reports from Venice that show that on May 7 hydrogen sulfide in the air was measured at 1192 parts per billion. Five parts per billion is considered hazardous to human health. In addition, the May 7 reports show that benzene levels in the air were measured at 5000 parts per billion, again in the health danger zone. Propylene glycol, a major component in Corexit 9500, is being measured in Gulf waters at 150 times its lethal concentration.

For quite some time, many bloggers and journalists following the BP-Corexit story, including me, have made the allegation that BP may have been experimenting by dumping over a million gallons of toxic dispersants into the ocean because they were desperately trying to prevent the oil from hitting the beaches.

Well, Corexit is one of a number of dispersants, that are toxic, that are used to atomize the oil and force it down the water column so that it’s invisible to the eye. In this case, these dispersants were used in massive quantities, almost two million gallons so far, to hide the magnitude of the spill and save BP money. And the government—both EPA, NOAA, etc.—have been sock puppets for BP in this cover-up. Now, by hiding the amount of spill, BP is saving hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in fines, and so, from day one, there was tremendous economic incentive to use these dispersants to hide the magnitude of the gusher that’s been going on for almost three months…..

People who work near [Corexit] are hemorrhaging internally [but the] EPA now is taking the position that they really don’t know how dangerous it is, even though if you read the label, it tells you how dangerous it is.… for example, in the Exxon Valdez case, people who worked with dispersants, most of them are dead now. The average death age is around fifty. It’s very dangerous, and it’s an economic—it’s an economic protector of BP, not an environmental protector of the public.

BP has dumped almost two million gallons of dispersants from Nalco in the Gulf of Mexico that is disguising the extent of the Deepwater spill and the inability of existing technology to mitigate the disaster. Even if BP eventually staunches the hemorrhage of oil, devastating toxins will linger for decades.

For example, in one approval request, one of BP’s top executives, Doug Suttles, claimed that the maximum daily application of dispersants on the surface in the days preceding June 16, 2010 was 3,360 gallons on June 12. However, an examination of the dispersant totals BP provided to congressional staff in its daily “Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Response Updates” indicates that on June 11, BP said it applied 14,305 gallons of the chemical on the surface; on June 13, 36,000 gallons; and on June 14, 10,706 gallons.

According to publicly disclosed amounts on DeepwaterHorizonResponse.com, more than 1.8 million gallons of toxic dispersants were used to break up the oil as it came out of the well, as well as after it reached the ocean surface. The validity of those numbers are now in question.

“It’s a lot thicker then you see on TV. It’s a lot worse. It’s everywhere. The smell is outrageous. People (were) getting sick all the time. They don’t really tell you what it is, why people are getting sick, but they were MedEvac-ing people left and right,” Bourgeois said. “I have personally dealt with headaches and feeling bad. It’s a lot different then what you see sitting at the house.”

The combination of millions of gallons of oil and dispersants has made large areas of the Gulf toxic and dangerous, marine toxicologist Ricki Ott saying if she lived there with children she’d leave – based on her firsthand experience after the 1989 Prince William Sound, Alaska Exxon Valdez disaster and subsequent research, documented in her books titled, “Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill” and “Not One Drop – Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.”

Ongoing today, the legacy includes criminal negligence, bankruptcies, destroyed lives and livelihoods, domestic violence, severe anxiety, trauma, PTSD, drug and alcohol abuse, serious illnesses, suicides, massive loss of plant and wildlife, and vast ecological destruction from the 30 million or more gallons spilled, the State of Alaska’s conservative estimate, not Exxon’s 11 million figure, its lowball claim to hide the disaster’s magnitude and minimize its liability.

The Gulf catastrophe is infinitely greater, estimates up to three or more Exxon Valdez incidents (using Exxon’s figure) a week until capped. Yet some experts think another seabed hole (a few miles from the Macondo well) is emitting 100,000 or more barrels daily, greatly compounding the growing disaster, added to more by numerous small leaks, five or more alone in BP’s Macondo well – the “well from hell,” according to some.

Every minute, up to 925 gallons can be dispensed at high pressure to clear the road and put protests to a swift end. German police seem to expect more than a few riots over the next few years, as 78 of these vehicles will be put into service over the next ten years (at total cost of €75 million or $107.6 million).

At one of the darkest moments of human history – in the heart of Nazi Germany – three idealistic German college students began publishing and distributing leaflets urging their countrymen to resist the barbaric depredations of Adolf Hitler’s war-making regime.

The three, known as The White Rose, were ultimately captured, tried and executed, but their inspirational pleas for resistance to an intolerable war machine and its propaganda apparatus inspire people to this day and offer lessons to Americans who face far less personal danger in resisting the dangers of militarism, Gary G. Kohls notes in this guest essay on The White Rose Society.

“When the yellow star was forced on Jews, non-Jews who objected began to wear yellow stars with ‘Buddhist’, ‘Goy’ (Gentile) or ‘Victory’. Some Zazous took this up, with ‘Zazou’ written below the star. When the French Jews were removed from the scene, the Vichy regime and their Nazi masters turned on the Zazous.”

“Soon, round-ups began in bars and Zazous were beaten on the street. They became Enemy Number One of the fascist youth organisations, Jeunesse Populaire Française. ‘Scalp the Zazous!’ became their slogan. Squads of young JPF fascists armed with hairclippers attacked Zazous. Many were arrested and sent to the countryside to work on the harvest.”

WPXI in Pittsburgh reported on February 9 that the Army National Guard will remain in the city “indefinitely” in response to the weather. “The guardsmen are paired up with police and medics across town, turning dozens of humvees into welcome wagons,” the news channel reported.

The frightening history of MK-ULTRA and examples of its’ dangerous use against humans, including US citizens.

“The Supreme Court has an obligation to settle the Ineligibility Clause issue once and for all,” said Fitton. “If our government and courts will not observe even the plain and unambiguous provisions of the Constitution, then we are cut adrift from the anchor of law and liberty and the rule of law is in jeopardy. We hope the Supreme Court takes this opportunity to vindicate the Constitution.”

Please note how the gov propaganda arm, your local TV news, starts this piece with Tampa police and feds “are keeping your family safe”. And of course they pick one guy for an on-air interview who says he likes the plan, to keep him safe.

While Arkansas strictly regulates those who cut hair or paint nails in private, voluntary transactions, it imposes no training or licensing standards whatsoever on armed people clothed in government-issued costumes and the supposed authority to inflict lethal violence on others.